Kagome: An Inuyasha Film Noir Murder Mystery
by Ashteldar's Jewel
Summary: New York City 1944, Lovely Kagome Higurashi is discovered, murdered in her apartment. An AU remake of a classic film noir movie.


Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Inuyasha characters or stories, nor do I own any of the characters or plot from the movie that I am borrowing from, except any OC or original plot situations that I might come up with.

I will reveal the name of the movie a few chapters in; Virtual cookies to anyone who guesses it before then. But this plot will not follow the movie exactly, so knowing the movie will not reveal the murderer or the romantic pairings.

Thanks for reading, please review and give me your guesses.

Kagome

An Inuyasha Film Noir, Murder Mystery

By Ashteldar's Jewel

Chapter 1

I still remember the weekend that Kagome died, the moon shone silver in a burning black sky, as New York sweltered under the hottest July in my recollection. When I heard of Kagome's horrible death, I was alone. It felt as though I was the only sentient being left in the city. For I, Sesshomaru Lydecker was the only one who really knew her, and I had just begun to write her story, when; another of **those** detectives came to see me. I had him wait.

I could observe him through the half-open door of my bath, as he wandered freely about my lavish apartment. I saw him as he admired my fabulous collection of art, as he checked his watch against my lovely baroque Louis XIV grandfather clock, as he gazed at the Tibetan demon masks that adorned my walls, but when he opened the display cabinet to play with an antique crystal flask, I had finally had enough.

"Careful there, that stuff is priceless. Come in here, please!" I called for him to join me in the room where I lounged in my lavish marble bath, typing out Kagome's story. I had always done my best writing in my bath.

He was just a boy, dressed in a cheap suit, he hadn't even bothered to remove his homburg hat or put out his cheap cigarette. He bypassed a comfortable lounge chair to pull out and turn around a plain straight chair to straddle the back. He came straight to the point. "Mr. Lydecker?"

"Ah, you recognize me, I'm flattered."

"Nice little place you have here, Mr. Lydecker."

"It's splendid, but I call it home. I suppose you're here about the Kagome Higurashi murder." I pulled out the folder where I had filed my witness statement. "Yesterday morning, after Kagome's body was found, I was questioned by Sergeants MacGyver and Klink, and I stated, 'Friday night I had a dinner engagement with Miss Higurashi, after which she meant to leave town to spend the weekend at her place in the country. She called and cancelled our engagement at approximately seven O'clock. After that I…'"

"You ate a lonely dinner, and got into the tub to read. Why did you write it down? Afraid you'd forget it?" As he lit another cigarette I noticed a certain strangeness about the boy and decided that I needed to conduct an investigation of my own.

"I am the most widely misquoted man in America, Detective, when my friends do it, I resent it, from Sergeants MacGyver and Klink, I would find it intolerable. Hand me that washcloth would you, Mr.? Mr.?"

I pushed my custom made Smith Corona typewriter away on its swivel arm as the Detective rose from his seat to comply with my request, and as he tossed me the washcloth he said … "McPherson."

"McPherson, McPherson, Ah, Inuyasha McPherson; the siege of Babylon, Long Island; The gangster with the machine gun, killed three policemen; I told the story on my radio show, wrote a column about it. Are you the one with the leg full of lead? The one who walked right in and got him?"

"Yeah," he said with a deprecating huff.

"Well, well," I said, standing up, "Hand me my robe please."

I saw the boy's eyes trail over my body for a moment as he made a strange little sneering, smirk' (Ah, if the boy could see my true form, there would be no sneers at me then). "Sure, here you go," he said and picked up my robe where it lay tossed casually over a chair and tossed it to me. "You have a pretty good memory, Mr. Lydecker."

"I always liked '**that' **Detective, the one with the silver shinbone."

"Thanks, I hope you won't have any reason to change your mind about me."

"Have you any more questions, McPherson?"

"Yeah, just one; two years ago in your October 17th column, you began to write a book review, then you changed subjects to the Harrington murder case."

"Are the processes of the creative mind now subject to the jurisdiction of the police, McPherson?"

"You said that Harrington was rubbed out with a shotgun loaded with buckshot, the way Kagome Higurashi was killed night before last."

"Did I?"

"Yeah, but he was really killed with a sash weight."

"How ordinary, my version was obviously superior."

As we spoke, the detective followed me into my room and stood behind me as my houseboy and valet, Jaken, quickly helped me dress.

I took the moment to watch the boy in the mirror as he shifted impatiently, 'I never bother with details, you know." He was a most handsome boy, taller than I in this disguise I had chosen for this part of my life, with blue-black hair cut short to suit his job and brilliant indigo-blue eyes.

"I do," he replied, "well, so long." He made a farewell gesture as he abruptly turned to leave.

"Wait, Detective, murder just so happens to be my favorite crime, I write about it all of the time, I would like to be there while you question all of the suspects on your list, to study their reactions. Mind if I come along with you?"

"Keh," he scoffed, ready to turn me down, I took that moment to cast a small glamour on the boy. "Uh sure," he said instead, a small puzzled frown on his handsome visage, "but be sure to stay out of the way. You're on that list yourself, you know." As he said this he sat down on the edge of my bed fiddling with a child's game he pulled from one of his pockets. A simple game, but one of control where one must get all the metal balls into their respective holes without them rolling out. I knew then, that McPherson was a man who walked on the edge of control and this game was how he kept from falling over. Quite intriguing.

Jaken's yellow eyes bugged out under his own disguise at this, but he knew better than to say a word. "Good," I said, "it would have been a pointed insult if I wasn't."

"You're not the kind of man one lightly insults, Mr. Lydecker."

'Do you really suspect me?"

"Yes."

"McPherson, if you know anything about faces, look at mine, I think that I look singularly innocent today. Have you ever seen such candid eyes?"

"Were you in love with Kagome Higurashi, Mr. Lydecker? Was she in love with you?"

'Kagome considered me the wisest, the wittiest and the most interesting man she ever met. I was in complete accord with her on those points. But, she thought me also the kindest, the gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world."

"Did you agree with her there also?"

"McPherson, you won't understand this, but I tried to become the kindest, the gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world, just for her."

"Have any luck?"

"Let me put it this way, I shall be sincerely sorry to see my neighbor's children devoured by wolves. Shall we go?"

"So McPherson," I asked, swinging my walking stick, as we descended the stairs to the waiting car, "You are obviously Japanese, as am I. How did you end up with a name like McPherson?"

"He turned to study me for a moment and smirked, "perhaps from the same place as you got the name Lydecker?"

I smirked back, "I chose my name, Detective, when I came to America from my native land and became a citizen, but I don't think you can say the same, Inuyasha."

The detective held his cold, noncommittal mask in place, but I could tell he was disturbed. "The McPhersons raised me," he said, "I took their name, because I had none of my own."

"Your parents?" I inquired.

He shrugged.

"And your first name? Inuyasha, quite unusual, not many would name their child 'dog forest spirit'?"

He shrugged again, and then smirked, "More unusual than 'Sesshomaru'? What does that mean, by the way?"

"Hn, you amuse me McPherson, one interpretation is 'man of destruction'."

"One interpretation? What's the other?"

"'The killing perfection'."

McPherson snorted, and raked me with a dismissing glance, "Keh, not very appropriate, I'd say."

I simply smirked back at him. Little did he know of my history, of the thousands I had slaughtered in the past. "I prefer 'Lord of Destruction', myself," I told him, "It follows from the many reputations and careers I have destroyed."

He gave me an incredulous look, as though he couldn't imagine that someone as weak as I appeared could ever do such things. And then the car pulled up outside the building where Kagome's young aunt, Sango Treadwell lived.

"First stop," he said, as we climbed the stairs, "If we get lucky, Miroku Carpenter, will be here also."

"No Detective, not lucky, never lucky where Carpenter is concerned," I replied as he knocked at the door," and as the maid showed us in, I felt a shiver of dread as I hadn't felt in many, many years. But I also knew, this, this was the beginning to finding out who had murdered my dear, dear Kagome. I would slaughter them myself, once I knew.


End file.
